The Insane Society: Hard-Hitting Examples of Collective Madness in 2025! By Chris Knight (Florida)

In 1955, Erich Fromm's The Sane Society argued that modern life alienates us from our humanity, breeding dysfunction masquerading as progress. Today, his thesis could be retitled The Insane Society, as the collective madness of our era, produced by institutional decay, cultural fragmentation, and unhinged behaviour, has reached fever pitch. The ZeroHedge article from July 31, 2025, lists ten symptoms of societal collapse, from "scream clubs" to apocalyptic romanticism, echoing Fromm's warning that we're losing our grip on reason. But the examples go deeper, exposing a world where elites protect their own, systems betray the vulnerable, and absurdity is normalised. Below are ten harder-hitting examples of collective madness in 2025, grounded in recent events and trends, that make Fromm's critique feel prophetic.

1. Rotherham's Police Predators

In Rotherham, UK, the grooming gang scandal, where 1,400 girls were abused by predominantly Pakistani-heritage men from 1997 to 2013, has taken a darker turn. Five survivors now allege that South Yorkshire Police officers not only ignored the crimes but participated, raping girls as young as 11 in marked police cars and destroying evidence to cover their tracks. One officer, PC Hassan Ali, allegedly raped a victim and threatened to hand her back to the gangs; he died in 2015, evading justice. The force's self-investigation, despite IOPC oversight, reeks of institutional self-preservation, with no charges yet filed against three arrested officers. This isn't just negligence, it's a betrayal of public trust, where those sworn to protect preyed on the vulnerable, amplifying a "two-tiered" justice system that shields the powerful.

2. Asylum Hotels: A Satirical Dystopia

Britain's asylum system has morphed into a grotesque caricature, with migrants housed in luxury hotels costing taxpayers £3 billion annually. Whistleblower Aston Knight's viral TikTok exposés reveal four-poster beds, PS5s, and buffet breakfasts at places like the Hotel Britannia, while locals struggle with NHS waitlists and crumbling infrastructure. Protests in Epping, Essex, turned chaotic as taxpayers revolted against this "Deluxe Asylum Resort Experience." The Home Office's "firm but fair" mantra, cutting £1 billion, while maintaining lavish accommodations, mocks fiscal sanity, reflecting a nation unable to balance compassion with accountability, where policy reads like a Monty Python sketch gone wrong.

3. Pension Crisis Delusion

The UK's pay-as-you-go pension system faces collapse by 2036, with a 2042 dependency ratio of 367 pensioners per 1,000 workers. Yet, politicians cling to mass immigration as a fix, despite evidence of fertility convergence (migrants adopting low native birth rates) and negative fiscal contributions (72% of 2022–23 visa holders earn below average wages). This denial ignores proven models like Sweden's notional defined-contribution plan or Singapore's Central Provident Fund, which ensure solvency without endless migration. Peddling a failed solution while ignoring reform is collective insanity, sacrificing long-term stability for short-term optics.

4. Epstein's Untouchable Network

A Rasmussen Reports poll from July 2025 reveals 60% of Americans believe the Trump administration is covering up ties to Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking network. The DOJ's refusal to release a "client list," claiming it doesn't exist, clashes with public suspicion of a protected elite, from politicians to billionaires. Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction without client indictments, combined with Epstein's suspicious 2019 death (44% believe it was murder, per a Washington Post poll), fuels distrust. This isn't mere conspiracy; it's a pattern of elite impunity, where truth is buried to shield the powerful, eroding faith in justice.

5. Euthanasia as Cost-Cutting

Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program is projected to euthanise 15 million citizens by 2047, framed as a healthcare cost-saving measure. Kelsi Sheren, a combat veteran, calls it a dystopian slide, with the US following suit as 11 states consider "death with dignity" laws. Normalising state-sanctioned death for economic reasons, while mental health crises soar (26% of Americans have a diagnosable disorder, per Johns Hopkins), is a chilling abandonment of human value, cloaked in bureaucratic compassion.

6. Geoengineering Without Consent

In 2024, University of Washington scientists conducted an unauthorised solar geoengineering experiment in San Francisco Bay, aiming to "dim the sun" to combat climate change. Shut down after 20 minutes by local officials, the project exposed a reckless hubris: unelected researchers tampering with global ecosystems without public debate. The backlash, fuelled by conspiracy fears, highlights a deeper madness, experts acting as gods, bypassing democratic accountability, while climate policies falter.

7. Child Abuse in Elite Enclaves

In Los Angeles, a wealthy Chinese couple, Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, allegedly abused 21 children, including a 2-month-old with a traumatic brain injury, in a mansion before their May 2025 FBI arrest. This case, alongside Rotherham's horrors, reveals a pattern: predators exploiting wealth or authority to evade scrutiny. Society's failure to protect children in both gritty towns and upscale neighbourhoods signals a moral collapse, where power trumps justice.

8. Scream Clubs as Social Norm

Chicago's Scream Club, where hundreds gather weekly to howl at Lake Michigan, is marketed as "therapy" for stress. Founder Manny Hernande calls it breathwork, but it's a symptom of a society unmoored from reason, where public primal screaming replaces meaningful mental health solutions. With 26% of Americans mentally ill, per Johns Hopkins, this ritual, glorified on social media, normalises collective despair as performance art.

9. Paying Kids to Attend School

Chronic absenteeism has gripped US schools, with 20 states reporting over 30% of students missing three weeks or more in 2022–23. Some districts now pay kids to show up, treating education like a gig economy job. This desperate bribe sidesteps root causes, disengagement, broken families, and failing systems, reflecting a society that monetises failure instead of fixing it.

10. Romanticising Collapse

A growing subculture "romanticises the apocalypse," per ZeroHedge, yearning for a reset to escape modern alienation. With 62% of Britons feeling their communities have changed without consent (2024 Telegraph poll) and Americans nostalgic for the 1950s, this fatalism reflects a society so fractured, that many prefer chaos to the status quo. Staring at screens for 10 hours a day, disconnected from real relationships, we've built a world where collapse feels like salvation.

Conclusion

Fromm's Sane Society warned that alienation breeds insanity; in 2025, we're living proof. From police rapists in Rotherham to luxury asylum hotels, from euthanasia as fiscal policy to geoengineering gambles, these examples surpass ZeroHedge's list in their raw exposure of systemic rot. Institutions protect predators, elites dodge accountability, and the public screams, literally and figuratively, into the void. This isn't just madness; it's a civilisation unravelling, where the lunatics don't just run the asylum, they've rebranded it as progress. Only radical reform, pensions, justice, borders, vast immigration restriction, can pull us back from the brink.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/10-examples-show-our-society-going-completely-insane

"It has been said that there is no cure for crazy. If that is actually true, we are in all sorts of trouble. When I was growing up, the crazy people were on the fringes of our society. Today, it is the normal people that have been pushed to the fringes of our society. If you think that I am exaggerating, just look around you. Much of the population is literally behaving like maniacs. We all laughed when "Idiocracy" was released in theaters in 2006 because it was so absurd, but in retrospect that film was essentially a warning about what would soon be coming. Over the past 20 years, our society has been turned totally upside down. The lunatics are running the asylum, and many of them are lashing out in wild and unpredictable ways.

If you think that I am being too harsh, please read the rest of this article. I truly wish that I was exaggerating, but I am not. The following are 10 examples that show that our society is going completely insane…

#1 Would you join a "scream club"?. In Chicago, a very large group of liberals meets even Sunday evening at 7 PM to scream their heads off…

Scream Club Chicago has found an unorthodox way to let off some steam and make life a little easier.

The group meets on the North Avenue Beach pier every Sunday at 7 p.m., where they breathe deeply and collectively scream into the open air over Lake Michigan.

The group was started by Manny Hernande, a breathwork coach who was looking for an outlet to deal with stress. He invited others to join him in the screaming ritual on social media. Now the weekly therapy session are growing in popularity.

#2 In America today, the violent lunatic walking next to you could snap at any moment. At a Walmart in Michigan, a man that was shopping in the grocery section suddenly pulled out a knife and started stabbing people…

"It was a guy with a knife — people were screaming and running in all directions," said Tasha Nash, a Walmart employee. "I saw someone stabbed in the eye."

Amber Paull, another shopper, described the assailant as a foreign man who "just lost it" and began randomly attacking people in the produce and grocery section. "An African American man pulled a hero move — he drew his pistol and tried to stop the attacker," Paull said. "But then people started screaming, and the suspect managed to slip back into the crowd."

#3 There are more than half a million victims of child abuse in the United States. A recent case in Florida was particularly horrifying…

Four adults were arrested after being accused of abusing nine children in their Florida home by caging them with plywood under a bunk bed and spraying them in the face with vinegar as a form of punishment, authorities said Friday.

Husband and wife Brian and Jill Griffeth, along with 21-year-old Dallin and 19-year-old Liberty Griffeth, were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Friday.

The four adults are suspected of abusing five biological and four adopted children — ages 7 to 16 — at their home in Fort White, Florida, roughly 35 miles northwest of Gainesville, the sheriff's office said.

#4 Some school districts are now paying kids to come to school because chronic absenteeism has become so pervasive…

Educators are trying to incentivize students to come to school, with some districts even paying students for their attendance.

Others have encouraged teachers to have attendance count towards grades or limit the number of assignments that can be completed online, The Boston Globe reports.

Twenty states reported that more than 30 percent of their students missed at least three weeks of school in 2022-23, according to latest figures from the DoE.

#5 Mad scientists feel like they have the right to "play God" without our permission. For example, not too long ago a group of mad scientists on the west coast attempted to conduct an unauthorized geoengineering experiment in San Francisco Bay which was intended to dim the sun…

The details outlined in funding requests, emails, texts and other records obtained by POLITICO's E&E News raise new questions about a secretive billionaire-backed initiative that oversaw last year's brief solar geoengineering experiment on the San Francisco Bay.

They also offer a rare glimpse into the vast scope of research aimed at finding ways to counter the Earth's warming, work that has often occurred outside public view. Such research is drawing increased interest at a time when efforts to address the root cause of climate change — burning fossil fuels — are facing setbacks in the U.S. and Europe. But the notion of human tinkering with the weather and climate has drawn a political backlash and generated conspiracy theories, adding to the challenges of mounting even small-scale tests.

Last year's experiment, led by the University of Washington and intended to run for months, lasted about 20 minutes before being shut down by Alameda city officials who objected that nobody had told them about it beforehand.

#6 It is being projected that Canada will euthanize 15 million of their own citizens by 2047, and the U.S. is heading down the exact same path…

In a recent video, Kelsi Sheren, a Canadian combat veteran, host of The Kelsi Sheren Perspective, and an outspoken opponent of Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) policies, shared how Canada's government-controlled healthcare system plans to euthanize an estimated 15 million Canadians between 2027 and 2047, a staggering figure justified under the pretext of cost savings.

While doctor-assisted suicide in the U.S. has not yet reached the alarming extremes observed in Canada, the "death with dignity" movement is actively attempting to change that. Pending Governor Hochul's signature on New York's recently passed bill, 11 states and Washington, D.C., will permit this abhorrent and immoral practice.

#7 Often some of the worst crimes are happening in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods. For instance, somehow a wealthy Chinese couple in Los Angeles was able to collect and abuse 21 children before authorities finally caught on to them…

A house in an upmarket Los Angeles city was raided by the FBI, leading authorities to rescue 21 small children, many of whom had allegedly been subject to abuse.

Guojun Xuan, 65, and Silvia Zhang, 38, were initially arrested in May under suspicion of felony child endangerment and neglect, after a 2-month-old baby in their care was brought to a local hospital with a traumatic brain injury.

Doctors realized the injuries had occurred around two days previously, sparking a police investigation.

#8 Major cities all over the nation are becoming rotting, decaying hellholes. Can you guess which large American city is being described in these paragraphs?…

Speaking at a public Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, local man Frank Sereno said he was concerned about the levels of crime.

According to KMBC, he said: 'Property crimes, stolen vehicles, teens running through the neighborhood, armed, shooting firearms'.

'These are not innocent petty crimes. These are very violent individuals who are out to do harm to us. And we're tired of it happening,' he added.

It isn't Los Angeles.

It isn't San Francisco.

It isn't New York City.

It isn't Chicago.

The city being described in those paragraphs is actually Kansas City.

I am old enough to remember when Kansas City was still a very civilized place.

#9 The experts are now admitting that more than a quarter of our population is mentally ill. According to Johns Hopkins, approximately 26 percent of all Americans suffer from " a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year"…

Mental health disorders account for several of the top causes of disability in established market economies, such as the U.S., worldwide, and include: major depression (also called clinical depression), manic depression (also called bipolar disorder), schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about 1 in 4 adults — suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. In particular, depressive illnesses tend to co-occur with substance use and anxiety disorders.

Approximately 9.5% of American adults ages 18 and over, will suffer from a depressive illness (major depression, bipolar disorder, or dysthymia) each year.

#10 These days, many Americans are actually "romanticizing the apocalypse" simply because they want all of the madness to finally end…

If you could turn back the clock and have America go back to the way that it was in the 1950s and 1960s, would you do it?

Even though we would have to give up our electronic gadgets and a lot of our modern conveniences, a lot of normal people would choose to do that in a heartbeat.

Why?

Because life was so much simpler in those days, and people actually connected with one another.

Today, most people can count their true friends on one hand.

We weren't designed to stare at screens for 10 hours a day.

And the value of our lives was never meant to be determined by how many "likes" we get on Facebook or Instagram.

Our modern way of life is not healthy.

In fact, it is literally driving many of us insane.

Hopefully we will choose to change direction before it is too late."